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Watch 2013 Barack Obama Debate 2006 Joe Biden Over NSA Surveillance [video]
- kunai 13y agoObama's speech is obviously canned, while Biden's is the opposite. He is speaking candidly and openly, because he knows that it's the truth. The President, on the other hand, is hesitant and only chooses neutral words. Amazing what diction can do for public viewpoints. It's equally amazing how many don't care enough to notice the aural cues of the state of being disingenuous.
- mtgx 13y agoWasn't this the speech where he had to wait for like a minute before his staff brought him the speech, because they lost it or something? So yes, definitely canned, and he would've rather waited until they found the speech, instead of taking the issue head-on himself.
- cpursley 13y agoIf we were honest and classified President Obama objectively based on his actions alone, we'd label him a neoconservative corporatist in the same vein as Cheney. It's painful, especially after Bush. The truth hurts.
- university 13y agoBut exponentially more charismatic to the general public, which means he will run the ball down the field further than Cheney ever could. Look out.
- pvnick 13y agoApparently the CIA agrees with you: http://www.salon.com/2010/03/27/wikileaks/ http://www.salon.com/2010/03/27/wikileaks/ From TFA: "the CIA sees Obama as a valuable asset in putting a pretty face on our wars in the eyes of foreign populations."
- WA 13y agoMan, this is so true. I think 90% of Germans would vote for Obama. Mission accomplished.
- Shivetya 13y agoI would have preferred a press that wasn't just a damn fan club. Public opinion be damned, the press is supposed to report, not bow down
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- jivatmanx 13y agoNeoconservativism is a real ideology, with real writings and a history, and people who acknowledge being followers of it. Searching "Team B" for it's history, of "Leo Strauss" for it's ideology is a good starting point for people interested in this topic. The actions of the G.W.B. administration are actually fairly understandable when you consider that most of his cabinet was from Team B. As for Obama, all indications of his pre-presidential history is that he is ideologically traditional liberal, applying the term to him is problematic, even though his actions in office could indeed be described as neoconservative. This makes him far more difficult to assess.
- leifaffles 13y agoThis article tackles a lot of confusion that has come with the word over the past couple decades: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/06/05/neoconservative-needs-to-be-retired-why-not-try-imperialist.html http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/06/05/neoconserva...
- threeseed 13y agowe'd label him a neoconservative corporatist in the same vein as Cheney Only if you are a child who is unable to appreciate that people are far more complex than simplistic labels. Why not call him a socialist fascist as well ? Or a war monger ? Or a liberal ? Or anti capitalist ? Oh wait there are some contradictions there.
- cpursley 13y agoWell, let's take a look at two definitions: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoconservative https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoconservative https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crony_capitalism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crony_capitalism (what I mean by corporatist) Think about those two in the context of the president's actions and come back to your statement. Let's tally his accomplishments, shall we? He's bailed out private corporations at the expense of the middle class (ugh, don't like this phrase) through both taxes, and worse, inflation. He's not only continued the middle eastern wars, he's vastly expanded them (and I won't even mention drones). He's allowed the wholesale spying on Americans. Increased the size of the incompetent DHS. Basically said that murdering Americans without due process is alright. He hasn't legalized gay marriage. He hasn't decriminalized marijuana. What political ideology does that sound like? The president has only been 'liberal' on one point: healthcare. Even there, he basically handed (well, forced) over all our healthcare to private corporations. And our healthcare is still expense, even more so! Look, President Obama is neither liberal or conservative, he's a political opportunist who's actions happen to align with the neoconservatives minus the religious stuff (thankfully). I doubt it's intentional, but if it walks like a duck...
- pocketstar 13y agoHow do you identify terrorists with only phone call 'metadata'?
- rtaibah 13y agoImagine 3 burner sim cards used by three individuals used to call each other with call durations of 5 seconds. Such a scenario would probably light up on the NSA's dashboard like a Christmas tree. In the investigation of the Hariri assasination such analysis was employed by painstakingly looking into millions of phone calls in Lebonan. If I remember correctly, the UN investigation team identified 4 rings each color coded (red, blue, yellow, and purple) each ring would only call phones in their ring and the ring leaders talked to each other. So you had nodes that talk to each other and one single node would talk to one other node outside of each group. They also correlated the timing of the calls and locations in relation to where the Hariri convoy was on the day of the assassination (eg. a green call made as Hariri left his palace.) I can't remember the details but the report was a very interesting read. http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2089420,00.html http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2089420,00.htm... http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/story/2010/11/19/f-rfa-macdonald-lebanon-hariri.html http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/story/2010/11/19/f-rfa-macdonal...
- sparky 13y agoWith no other information, you probably can't. But imagine the metadata as a graph; phone numbers are nodes, edge weights correspond to the length and frequency of calls between the two phone numbers. Clique (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clique_(graph_theory) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clique_(graph_theory)) -like entities in that graph are people who are all in close communication, so if you know that one phone number is a suspected xyz, the others in the clique are probably of interest too.
- ysangkok 13y ago"Nobody is listening to your telephone calls" because the NSA has voice recognition. The machine listens to the call, and saves the transcript as metadata. :)
- glurgh 13y ago
- chimeracoder 13y agoRelated - here's a video of Candidate Obama debating President Obama on government surveillance: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7BmdovYztH8 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7BmdovYztH8
- MisterWebz 13y agoThis kind of shows the amount of power the people behind the scenes have on Obama.
- corin_ 13y agoHypothetical other explanations: 1.) Obama always had the same views, but was lying to get elected 2.) Obama changed his mind, a possibility for any person on any topic 3.) Becoming president gave Obama new information which changed his mind, and which would change the mind of anyone elected president 4.) His opinions stayed the same, but now that he's president it's in his best interests to take this stance, which it wasn't before There's more than one possible cause here, and possibly more than one of them are the case. Despite the fact that it's much easier to blame external influences.
- leifaffles 13y agoI agree. It'd be great if we could just ask him, but I don't know if I've ever heard him say something that wasn't manipulative and to his perceived political advantage.
- ZoFreX 13y agoI think this advice to Kissinger really drives home what option #3 looks like - http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2010/02/daniel-ellsberg-limitations-knowledge http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2010/02/daniel-ellsber...
- nano111 13y ago5) They spied on Obama, and now are blackmailing him
- 13y ago
- znowi 13y agoWhere did the master of public speaking go? I don't recognize Obama here. He's nervous and lost at words. Almost guilty.
- keithwarren 13y agoI think he is being incredibly careful and deliberate with his words here, there is a pattern and speed to his typical rhetoric that is clearly gone here. He knows that there is certain words or phrases he must avoid (privacy instead of civil liberties) or else he takes a moment in which he is trying to defuse a tough political spot and magnifies the problem.
- LoganCale 13y agoI personally interpreted it as choosing his words very carefully to avoid inadvertently implying any capability beyond what had already been leaked.
- temphn 13y agoProbably Jon Favreau didn't ghostwrite this one. http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jon_Favreau_(speechwriter) http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jon_Favreau_(speechwriter)
- zecho 13y agoI downvoted this because you linked to an entry without reading it, which drives me insane. Strike "probably" from your post and you have an accurate statement.
- temphn 13y agoTone was lost over the Internet. Inclusion of "probably" was a joke: without Favreau or another speechwriter, Obama isn't going to sound particularly erudite, in the same way that an actress without makeup generally looks much more normal. Most people don't realize that Obama doesn't write his own speeches anymore than he picks what suit to wear.
- wilfra 13y agoThe difference between 2013 Obama and 2006 Biden is that 2013 Obama gets briefings on what exactly they uncover with that metadata and who they are catching with it. That's what he means when he says it was worth it.
- peterwiese 13y agoyou're right, that's the real reason his mind changed. from outside, it looks like biden and also snowden describe it. from inside, obama gets all the intelligence of potential attacks here and there. he realizes now, that it helps his agencies a lot to dispose of those datasets (phone records, emails etc.). obama admits, that there needs to be a discussion. but he is also clearly positioned on the topic and as long as there is no regulation in place, his decision will determine if surveillance will continue unencumbered.
- wmeredith 13y agoThat, "we have our reasons, but we can't tell you" excuse holds no water with me. I'm more likely to get shot by cop than hurt by a terrorist in this country. Whatever happened to, "give me liberty or give me death"?
- wilfra 13y agoI was only addressing the reason for the conflicting statements. Whether or not National Security is irrelevant I'll leave to others to debate. But it's a virtual certainty Obame and Biden would have disagreed with you (correctly or incorrectly) before taking office, as they would now.
- sreddy1 13y agocool stuff
- natch 13y agoHas this been taken down? Mirror, anyone? Not working for me, just gives a black rectangle once the video is accessed.
- stordoff 13y agoWorking here. Maybe try this link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m4SRCOouw5I https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m4SRCOouw5I
- ck2 13y agoNot an excuse at all but watching President Obama these days is like watching the end of The Man Who Fell to Earth (the original one with Bowie) where he's lost all control of people around him that he helped bring to power in the first place and he's utterly frustrated but stuck having to work with them. As someone who was thrilled to see him elected, I am going to be very relieved to see him flown away on that last day, just like Bush.
- quadrangle 13y agoFWIW, it is important that Candidate Obama had to say the things he did to be elected. I would rather live in a world in which the ideals we put forward are good, even when the system then corrupts them and people turn out hypocritical. It is far worse when we as a society lose our principles.